Surprise! “Loose Change” producer arrested for deserting the Army

posted at 11:32 am on July 25, 2007 by Allahpundit

Via the boys at SLC, who through a herculean effort have managed to suppress their bubbling schadenfreude at the news.

An Oneonta man who helped produce a 9/11 conspiracy documentary that became an Internet hit was arrested Monday for allegedly deserting the Army.

Korey Rowe, 24, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, was picked up by deputies at about 10:45 p.m. Monday, Otsego County Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. said…

Rowe was arrested on a “military warrant” that Devlin said was brought to the attention of deputies by the Oneonta Police Department, who received information from a source outside of that department…

After deputies received the information from Oneonta police, they reached out to the Army, and officials from Fort Knox faxed a copy of the warrant, deputies said…

He is being held without bail in the Otsego County jail and is waiting to be picked up by U.S. Army officials, Devlin said.

He won’t be court-martialed — few deserters are, per the article, and if he is it’ll only be used as further proof of, ahem, “the conspiracy” — but I’m curious to find out when he went AWOL. According to him, he did six months in Kandahar in 2002 and then not quite 11 months in Kuwait and Iraq from February 2003 to January 2004. Question to vets: Are 11-month tours normal? I’m assuming he must have done a full tour and then come home as it would have been difficult, to say the least, for him to escape while on duty and hitch a ride back to the States. And a follow-up question: How did they miss snaring this tool at the dozens of media appearances he’s made in the past few years to promote his agitprop?

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How did they miss snaring this tool at the dozens of media appearances he’s made in the past few years to promote his agitprop?

Yeah, that is weird. It’s been 3 years since he supposedly deserted, so why did it take this long? Too many gaps in the story. I hope more details come out, or else the troofers will jump all over this.

I don’t know how it is now but when I was in the service the Marines were the only branch that actively sought out deserters. They were usually held at Quantico for thirty days as their dishonorables were being processed then let go. That’s the only thing I know of that would explain how he went so long without being picked up but there is that warrant, so maybe 911 changed that too.

in 2004 the policy on tours was 365 boots on the ground. Also, the military doesn’t actively hunt down deserters. They have a database that civilian law enforcement can check against. Most deserters are found after getting picked up for something else.

See, he’s an American citizen. He’s in the country legally. They have no problem arresting him. Now, if you’re in this country illegally, are abusing our social services, and demanding more rights, who do you think they are? Hertz Law enforcement?

See, he’s an American citizen. He’s in the country legally. They have no problem arresting him. Now, if you’re in this country illegally, are abusing our social services, and demanding more rights, who do you think they are? Hertz Law enforcement?

the Army generally does not “go after” deserters per se. They will issue the warrant and if the offender gets stopped for any reason the warrant will show up. The officer of any agency who stops the deserter sees the warrant, and then arrests the deserter. The department that arrests the deserter then contacts the nearest Army facility and they will send the MP’s to come pick up the deserter. That is how the system worked two years ago when I retired, the Army does not generally change standard procedure rapidly so I cannot imagine it has changed since my retirement.

When I was in the Army, ’84 – ’89, my first PDS was Ft. Knox. My time there was fifteen months, As far as I know I would have been stationed there for my entire enlistment but for requesting and being granted Airborne training. After Benning I was sent to Panama. That tour was for a fixed period of time, 24 months, standard for enlisted personnel at the time. I had to extend for 12 months for the Army to pay for my wife and our personal belongings to be shipped over. I don’t remember having heard of any Stateside duty being a set time period, (less schools and training) but that is not to say it didn’t happen.

That being said, if this shitbird was stationed overseas, he could have been granted Leave and simply not returned.

if you think about it, getting a dishonorable discharge would be a resume enhancer for him. it is possible that the military avoided making this a big deal so as not to help him profit from his “disgrace.”

I am very happy the coward got caught. For those who are unfamiliar with the military. I can’t speak for the other services but the Navy rarely goes out hunting deserters. They put warrants out and wait for the person to be caught by the police. When I was stationed on a ship in Norfolk VA in 2000 a kid went Unauthorized absence about 1 1/2 months prior to deployment about 3 weeks prior to the deployment he was being brought back to the ship. He got caught being drunk on an Air Force base while he was UA (AWOL for oldtimers).

I’m interested on what spin the TRUTHERs will put on this. As a few others have said, the military just puts their APB out and 98% of the time they get caught on a traffic ticket or some other mundane charge. When I worked at the Navy Transient Personnel Unit in San Diego back in 1999 as a brig chaser for a few months, I talked to one of the Navy Collection Agents when they brought in a guy for us to hold. I asked him what was the longest someone was UA that he knew about. He said that one guy was picked up after being gone for 34 years. He had come back from Nam and thought he had been discharged. They picked him up coming back across the border at San Ysidro. He owned a business that was on both sides of the border and crossed back and forth almost every day, then one day someone recognized him and that was that.

“He is being held without bail in the Otsego County jail and is waiting to be picked up by U.S. Army officials”

YES!

He may not get prison, but he will almost certainly get a Dishonerable Discharge. And that does have consequences. For example, certain careers are closed to him as a dishonerable discharge is an automatic disqualifier (teacher, lawyer, bank employee). He can’t legally own firearms. In some locales, he can’t run for elective office or vote. He can’t work for the federal government or hold certain state/local government jobs.

A dishonerable discharge will show up in any pre-employment background check, and it will affect his credit-worthyness. It puts him at the BACK OF THE LINE for certain state and federal benefits as well.

A dishonerable discharge is a MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD. And it will follow him for as long as he lives.

As to enhancing his credibility as a truther? I doubt it. Not to the general public, once it finds out. A DD is *NOT* a badge of honor, not yet anyway.

If he is not court-martialed, he will not get a dishonorable discharge. A DD is the harshest form of punitive discharge. If administratively separated, Rowe would get (at most) an Other than Honorable (OTH) discharge pursuant to a discharge in lieu of court-martial under AR 635-200, Chapter 10. An OTH is the worst form of administrative discharge an enlisted soldier can get. (FYI: Rowe was a PFC)

Most “desertions” aren’t court-martialed because they are junior soldiers that desert early in their tours. They are deemed deserters when they are AWOL for 30 straight days and are dropped from the rolls. That’s what prompts the “deserter” warrant.

Since Army and navy folks have already spoken up, I’ll put in the word for the Air Force. As with the other services, little effort is made to locate and return Air Force deserters. It’s the usual issuance of a warrant, then wait until the deserter is picked up on something else. A discharge “under other than honorable circumstances” is issued and the record is closed. There are, of course, likely exceptions. Personnel with cryptographic, nuclear or some weapons systems specialties may be actively sought and returned for security reasons.

I live next to an Army base and many of the Soldiers I know served tours ranging from 4 to 18 months. Most major units Battalions and Brigades served 12 – 15 months. Smaller units like seperate Companies, Detachments and Platoons served 6-9 month tours. We had a unit return last week that was in Iraq for 6 months. Another departed a couple of days ago that is scheduled for a 9 month tour.

I just talked with an active duty 1SGT friend of mine. He told me that 10 and 11 month tours are quite common.

He might get a DD out of this, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see some lib group assist him in upgrading his discharge at some point.
It’s no longer the stigma it used to be. Granted, as some have said, it would follow him, but then it has become rather easy to get an upgrade…not speaking from direct experience, but from other cases I have read about.